Twenty-Eight Minutes
by dstroyersoffspring
Summary: The cop doesn't honestly think that God has anything to do with it; this is science. This is their extinction event, an act of evolution, survival of the fittest. This is him not giving up until he has no other choice but to do so. "That's- that's all we want- a choice, a chance. Let us keep trying as long as we can." (My take on s1e6, written a few years ago so it's whatever.)


6/6/15 - 11:58 PM

Twenty Eight Minutes

In twenty eight minutes, you can learn what it feels like to have all hope ripped away from you and then given back by the same pair of trembling hands. You can learn about what makes you unique, what makes you human, you can learn that a man's vocabulary will change after a catastrophic loss in order to make it easier to deal with; the word _'wife'_ scratched out with the title, _'test subject nineteen'_. Not even a first name or a smaller wedding ring around a necklace or tucked into a pocket to identify his link to her.

 _ **Scanning to first event…**_

He wakes up in a hospital bed. He is alone. His ears are ringing because it is so silent. It's wrong. His throat feels like the fire he almost could have swallowed that day, he doesn't even know that it's coming yet. He doesn't know about anything. He just knows that the little girl holding the stuffed bunny isn't quite a little girl anymore and suddenly gas is the last thing he needs, he needs to not be wrong, and he knows he isn't when he sees the missing pictures from the walls. It takes twenty eight minutes to learn how to survive and adapt in this new life.

 _ **Scanning to second event…**_

The resurrection time varies wildly. He's never watched someone he knows and loves turn into one of those...things. But he knows what he should expect, he's not stupid. That's why he doesn't understand why all of these questions are just pouring out of him right now.

"We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours."

"So it restarts the brain?" Rick feels stupid even as the words are still leaving his mouth, because he knows it can't be as simple as that.

"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?"

"You tell me." Jenner's tone is not condescending, but honestly curious – he wants to know what the other's answer will be.

"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part- that doesn't come back. The you part…Just a shell driven by mindless instinct."

"God..." The cop doesn't honestly think that God has anything to do with it, though. He stops believing in any kind of higher being when he watches his twelve year old son point a gun seemingly at him, only to shoot and kill what used to be his best friend, partner, brother in arms. This doesn't have anything to do with God. This is science. This is their extinction event, an act of evolution, survival of the fittest. This is him not giving up until he has no other choice but to do so.

"That's- that's all we want- a choice, a chance. Let us keep trying as long as we can." He feels a sick sense of desperation welling up from the back of his mind. His stomach feels like it's full of pins and needles, and every second that the clock ticks back makes him feel more and more like a caged animal. He should have never led his people here.

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question, but that clock, it's counting down. What happens at zero?" And Dale, bless the old man's heart, asks the one question Rick couldn't bear to himself.

"The basement generators, they run out of fuel."

"And then?"

"Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

 _ **When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur.**_

"' _Decontamination'_? What does that mean?"

"It was the French."

"What?"

"They were the last ones to hold out, as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution." There is a sad, tired note to the scientist's words, one that has been there for a while now.

"What happened?"

"The same thing that's happening here; no power grid, ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuels, I mean, how stupid is that?"

"Jenner, what happens in twenty eight minutes?" When Rick doesn't receive an answer, he becomes more aggressive with the question. " _What happens in twenty eight minutes?!_ " The scientist snaps right back at him.

"You know what this place is?! We protected the public from very nasty stuff –weaponized Smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out, _ever_! In the event of a catastrophic power failure- in a terrorist attack, for example- H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"H.I.T.s?"

"Vi, define." Jenner allows the A.I. to spit out the formal definition, knowing full well that he will have to simplify it somewhat for his company.

 _ **H.I.T.s: High-Impulse Thermobaric fuel-air explosives that consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition process that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive, except nuclear.**_

"The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired. It sets the _air_ on fire. No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret – everything." He says it like it's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard of. The cop can see it in some of the faces in his group that Jenner isn't the only one to agree with this.

"Jenner, open the door."

"I can't do that. That's something the computers control."

"I think you're lying."

"What?"

"You're lying."

Scientists, they're drawn to the truth. It is their job to figure things out and get to the bottom of every experiment they run and have irrefutable proof of their findings in the end. Cops, they're also drawn to the truth. They just get it out of people in a much faster way.

"Last night, you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead. Why do you want out there so badly when you could have a peaceful end in here? It'll all be over in one tiny moment, a millisecond. No pain. Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate, to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"

"No. I don't want this. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere must be working on a way to stop this-"

"What part of 'everything is gone' do you not understand? There is no hope. There never was."

"You're lying. There's always hope. If you didn't have any hope, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"

"Not because I wanted to. I made a promise to her, my wife."

"Test subject nineteen was your wife?"

"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying."

"We're all going to die if you don't open that door, Jenner. We can stand a fighting chance out there. All I'm asking is for you to give it to us."

And there is that ear ringing silence again. Seven and a half seconds are wasted before the scientist walks over to a small control pad and types in a code. The door to their would-be fiery crypt slides back open and everyone who still has their will to live is already running for the corridor.

"I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those."

There is a heavy pause where the cop thinks he can maybe convince the scientist to venture outside with them, but there isn't enough time for that kind of argument right now.

"We always think there's gonna be more time, and then it runs out. I did the best I could in the time that I had. I'd like to believe she'd be proud of that."

The cop is still staring at him.

"There's your chance. Take it."

There is thirty five seconds left on the clock. He is still just standing there, staring. Then, finally, "I'm grateful."

"The day will come when you won't be."

And that is the truth. And Rick realizes it after two seasons pass, months later, after he has repeatedly said that they don't kill the living and then eats his own words, literally. He is no longer grateful when he is tearing out a man's throat with his own barred teeth, swallowing blood that is not his own and promising retribution for touching his son in a way that makes his skin crawl and burn with rage.

He just knows that he and his people need to survive, even though he knows that that is physically impossible. He knows too much now. He was labeled as dead man walking before he even got out of the CDC, they all were.

"Rick!" There is twenty eight seconds left on the clock. He turns around, lets the scientist slide in close to whisper the sentence in his ear that makes him feel like he's rotting from the inside out.

" _You are all infected._ "

And then, the cop takes his chance and he runs.


End file.
